Ever thought about getting yourself an admin?! The Anti-Sasser-patches had been out for weeks before Sasser stuck you. An this is true for those other "widely publicized" worms as well. So if you are mourning about this, you are in fact mourning about your incompetent admin. Personally, I don't know anybody who ever ran into one of those cute little worms whilst we are all hooked to broad-band -- now, why would that be..?!

I prefer Apple stays the way it is, selling niche products and never exceed it's market share of 5% for it's computer products. Because if it ever will be as wildly used as M$ is today, Mac OS X will suffer from viruses too if it will become mainstream. I like my Mac and l like it virusfree, I don't mind paying the extra bucks for a Mac because that way i don't have to worry about a virusscanner like my collegues and friends do!
Gladly Steve thinks the same way and is not interested in selling affordable Macs to compete against the low-level pc's, thankgoodness, same thing for servers.

Even better (for the consumers) would be if 20 OSs each had around 5% of the market. As long as they all would use open standards. It would mean more innovation, less viruses. And a market that fits in to the rest of the world. You could make a good niche product and people would actually care.

Hopefully linux will make that happend, that's why I'm betting on linux. Not because I like it a lot, but it will hopefully help to soften microsofts grip allowing other products to enter the market.

BTW, buying a mac just because you don't want to bother with virus scanners doesn't feel like such a great argument really.
If you know how to use a computer then viruses isn't really a problem, not even in Windows.
Sounds more like you want to stand out a bit and are afraid that people buying a lot of macs would make you less special.
Perhaps you should invest a bit more in your personality

Apple's laptops are things of beauty - the deep integration between hardware and software makes for a very complete package.

I say this as a recent convert, my Graphite iBook (eBay :-)) makes me wonder why i ever used Windows laptops, especially in terms of stability and battery life (6 hours regularly)

Those are the sort of attributes which a sales force looks for in laptops. In my office the sales force use Toshiba Portegé and Dell inspiron laptops running Windows 2000 and XP.. which are troublesome and struggle to get 4 hours on a charge... and an infected laptop carried Sasser into our head office :-(

I'd love to equip them all with Powerbooks. That's where I see sales opportunities for Apple.

Summary: it is possible to craft a website with an URL such that Safari (and likely any other browser) will execute arbitrary code with a single click. The code will run under the current users priviledge, without any conformation dialogs. The workaround at the moment is to redirect the help: protocol to a different application than the help-viewer. The issue has been raised with Apple in Februari, but there has not been any official reactions yet.

If you want to get away from MS (something I can really understand), there are allready a lot of alternatives. So, what does Apple add to make it worth choosing Apple instead of the other alternatives?

Well, it's the sort of the only other OS available for consumer machines running commercial applications like Photoshop and Microsoft Office. I'm sure your next argument will be 'why would anybody want those'; but for those that do, what other OS choice did you have in mind?

No, that is a perfectly good argument. But this only applies to desktop machines and the article didn´t focus on those. Being able to run photoshop on a mac simply is not a very good argument for employing an xserve.

What I really wanted to react to was the knee-jerk reaction that the admin is at fault for viruses and worms that affect enterprise machines.

He might be held responsible, but the truth is he would be even more to blame for installing system patches wholesale without testing it first to ensure it was fully compatible with critical applications. Patches can contain flaws also, and sometimes introduce new bugs and other vulnerabilities. Check the Microsoft website and see how many patches there are.

It's one thing to install all the latest on your home machine, but that's not the same as verifying all of a companies apps on different hardware.

how about instead of paying extra for a mac pay extra for a decent virus scanner and a nat box and run firefox (or xp sp2 rc1). i've had as many viruses on that configuration as on my emac AND a shite load of commercial programs at my disposal.

not a bagging of the macs just pointing out there are other options

(dont bother replying with "macz roolz" or "on macs we dont need virus checkers" please. im just saying that sasser and the like dont NEED to be a problem and you can still have all the windows programs available to you)

Absolutely the Sasser patch was out weeks ahead of time unfortunately it broke so many apps no one could install it on their systems.

With MS patches you generally have a two choices

Patch and Pray --- that your systems still work
Don't Patch and Pray -- that your systems won't get infected.

Also the "Patch" broke Samaba for Unix administrators. MS changed password management and though it is not MS's responsiblity to update Samaba many people can't patch their systems until it is fixed. So the price to keep your servers clean comes at the cost of keeping the desktops in a risky point.

I keep asking myself if you people even bother to read the article. He is talking about a company with hundreds of thousands of employees. Stating, man, my windows box at home is so secure with a virus scanner and running firefox doesn´t really say anything about the problems such an organization does face, but it says a lot about the people who still state such a nonsense.

Perhaps Apple really isn't all that interested in enterprise computing and the huge set of problems that come with it. Most problems involve dealing with the beast once you create it.
Apple's pockets are far from as deep as those of MS, IBM, and others. They can't simply decide they are going to jump into enterprise computing and run with it. They likely just can't afford to do so.
Apple has spent a ton of money over the past few years, and part of it wasn't invested wisely. They can only take risks they can afford to take.
Personally, I greatly question the wisdom of some of their decisons. Their music service "thing" might appear to many to be a real money maker; but it would take a lot to convince me they have actually made a cent at it, or ever really will.
If you believe some of the published numbers for their development costs of OS X, you could be lead to wonder just how much "net" profit they have made on this as well.
They in many ways seem to be heading exactly in the opposite direction from BIG computing. Their interests appear to be more into laptops, ipods, and gadgets to compliment BIG computing; without actually being in too deep.
Apple absolutely does have a line of server hardware and an OS; but a collection of hardware and a few pieces of software doesn't by itself put you into the enterprise computing market.
Far from it.

>If you know how to use a computer then viruses isn't really a problem, not even in Windows.

the problem is that the vast majority of people don't know how to "use computers" the way you mean it. they think that the OS they are running is called MS Office. they have no idea what a firewall is. they are only beginning to understand that clicking on executable attachments is somehow connected to viruses. but if its sent from a friend, its must be safe. they think that bonzi buddy is 'cute' (which is fine but then they complain about the side effects).

granted, that last one wont be fixed by switching to any OS, but the point is that the vast majority of people arent equipped to maintain their computers. thats why, a system that does as much as possible to "maintain itself" by automatically updating and patching itself is great. (and i'm glad MS is moving in that direction)

how does this apply to servers (the original topic was xserves)? there are legions of organizations that need server machines but dont have a big budget. law offices and pet stores (etc) with 15 people with a need for a network/print/mail server and web proxy. these people cant be relied on to set up and maintain a machine. they have neither the ability, interest, or time. and, as long as they get their services, they arent going to hire someone to 'fix it'. that machine could be a DDOS zombie for all they care (not that they know what one is) and their only complaint is that printing is taking a long time. they wont even know that patches have come out for tftp or bind. it amazes me how many people dont know that there is a windows update feature. ah enough ranting, but i'm sure you all have had similar experiences.

apple's share of the enterprise market is tiny. they have a solid product line, strong OS, a long history and unique benefits.

That suggests opportunity. But its never going to happen if apple prices their machines as they do now. business pays for the cheapest thing to do the job . right now that is a pc.

Apple should partner with someone who already has a strong presence in the enterprise and continue to work on improving its ability to run existing PC programs and expanding any software that might be needed. They should also offer a white box apple with a low price tag specifically for enterprise.

I don't know that building up their own sales and reseller effort from scratch is the thing here. partners are good. The acquistion of a smaller but well respected system integrator is also attractive.

A lot of people consider the 5% market share a problem. It is if it does not change. But it is also an opportunity. Apple is probably the only computer maker that can realistically double, triple or even quadruple their market share.

I've been playing around with OS X Server on a G5 Xserve for a few days, and I'm thoroughly impressed by the whole package, to the point that I will suggest to Mngmt. that we get a few for our own use. And OS X is not that expensive compared to other enterprice offerings, including Red Hat.

Apple has a chance here to make a killing, they just need to put more resources into sales and marketing of these things.

how about instead of paying extra for a mac pay extra for a decent virus scanner and a nat box and run firefox (or xp sp2 rc1)

rc1? Does that not designate a release candidate, or pre-release software? I may be wrong, but in the enterprise you do NOT rely on pre-release software. Firefox is only at version 0.8, and states this on their website:

Firefox is a Technology Preview.

While this software may work well enough to be relied upon as your primary browser, we make no guarantees of its performance or stability in its pre-1.0 state and it should not be relied upon for mission- critical tasks. See the License Agreement for more information.

For home, this may be an option, but in the workplace this would be considered a risk.

And for the individual that states that Sasser could be stopped by a firewall, what about those workers with laptops that have been in the field for weeks, come home and dock their laptops back at HQ? That's what happened at my company. Luckily I have both an XP and OS X machine in my office. While they worked on my XP box, I continued to work on my Mac. But I am one of four who is lucky enough to have 2 different platforms at their disposal in the office, and only because I am a graphic artist.

"Their music service "thing" might appear to many to be a real money maker; but it would take a lot to convince me they have actually made a cent at it, or ever really will."

Actually the iTunes music store is there to sell iPods and that is it. It does not turn a profit...it only sells iPods and for that, it has worked well.

"If you believe some of the published numbers for their development costs of OS X, you could be lead to wonder just how much "net" profit they have made on this as well."

Well, they must be doing something right...they were carrying a massive debt then worked towards paying it off when Jobs came back. They are now debt free with 5 billion in the bank. I don't think OS X is a money maker. It is just an investment to help sell what does make money...their hardware.

"They in many ways seem to be heading exactly in the opposite direction from BIG computing. Their interests appear to be more into laptops, ipods, and gadgets to compliment BIG computing; without actually being in too deep.
Apple absolutely does have a line of server hardware and an OS; but a collection of hardware and a few pieces of software doesn't by itself put you into the enterprise computing market.
Far from it."

I agree completely here. I think Apple might be feeling the water a little, but they are far from ready to take the plunge. They may in time decide to change their minds, but I think they want more cash in the bank first.

"I prefer Apple stays the way it is, selling niche products and never exceed it's market share of 5% for it's computer products."

I agree, Apple's main effort is toward thier customers and not making cheapo desktops to fill the masses and at the sametime they(Apple)are successful. Market share is third on Apple's agenda and that free's the company up to meet the needs of customers and to be innovative at the same time.

I love how people always make fun of Microsoft for their security record and then go on to say that if we all used Macs these security problems would all go away.

Apple isn't exactly a security conscious company either. Just because the core of their OS is UNIX-based doesn't mean it is automatically secure. I'm a Linux user, and I wouldn't say that Linux is necessarily much more secure than Windows by design. However, it does promote security by requiring a reasonable amount of knowledge to use it. Additionally, Linux users tend to be of the more paranoid sort and typically patch their systems as soon as they can.

In the end, the problem still lies with the user and not with the software vendor.

"it amazes me how many people dont know that there is a windows update feature. ah enough ranting, but i'm sure you all have had similar experiences."

Digger, I think you hit the nail on the head...and not just what I have qouted above...that entire post is right. What I wanted to draw attention to was your comment about people not knowing windows update. There are droves of people who do not know anything about windows update. Most people don't seem to think it is important (mostly because the few that do get to windows update don't seem to understand what each patch does). Worse yet, there are some that assume that it is a paid service.

You can't say that the answer to all the Windows woes is just to "patch it" because that ignores that people are involved. If you are reading that and think "well just educate people"...fine...have fun trying. That has been brought up for years and guess what....most people could give a shit about computers and don't want to learn a damned thing.

I personally agree with Lars’s early comment that, at the consumer level, I hope Apple stays its current course. People are always ranting about market share, but market share is meaningless. As long as Apple can remain profitable (which they have done consistently), I don’t care if they only sell a handful of machines.

I don’t hold this belief for elitist reasons, but rather, as has been suggested, because the strength of the Mac for the consumer is derived from the fact that is flies under the radar. There are fewer Mac viruses because there are fewer users. The ratio of quality software to poor software is high on the Mac side because there are fewer users (and existing users are accustomed to paying higher premiums for quality) and the developers that remain have to produce quality software to remain relevant with such a comparatively small consumer pool. Moreover, given US law, it is very possible that if Apple had a large market share, there would start to be questions about its rather blatant anti-competitive practices, such as binding the hardware and software and including its own software with the OS (isn’t this exactly what got MS in trouble?).

I agree with much of the article, but I also see the point of other posters who point out that Apple may not have the financial strength to compete in this already heavily-entrenched market. Not to mention that doing so would put them toe-to-toe against IBM, who now supplies their chips.

This is just my opinion, but it seems that Apple almost has written off the general market—both at the consumer and enterprise level. Many times Apple has alluded to the fact that the desktop war is over and MS won (no surprise there). As a consequence, Apple seems to have turned more and more to niche markets, and has had real, profitable success. This seems to be the fact that escapes people who rant about Apple’s market share (on both sides). Almost by their own admission, Apple does not want to be in direct competition with the likes of MS. This also may be true at the enterprise level. Although it is the case that Apple has recently made greater forays into enterprise probably since the days of the Apple III (and BOY did that not work), it seems like they are, akin to their desktop strategy, targeting specific elements in industry, and not industry in general.

It seems Apple is going after, for lack of a more precise term, the entertainment business and education (standard and higher). This would make sense, given that Macs are generally deployed to creative departments (film and video, graphics, publishing, etc.) and schools. Remember that Jobs was recently named the most powerful man in Hollywood. This, for better or worse, is a lucrative and disproportionally important niche.

Apple also appears to making forays into education (insert often-referenced VT cluster here), which again is a niche of the greater market that Apple has historically (but not recently) attempted to capture.

I think that Apple, both on the consumer and enterprise levels, is targeting specific niches. This may be a wise strategy, given that they may not be able to really compete in a wide area. They can either spread themselves attempting to offer a general enterprise solution, or they can focus on specific enterprises; they seem to have chosen the latter. Just to make an asinine, elitist analogy, the History Channel was showing a documentary about the Peloponnesian War yesterday. The Spartans, after 20-odd years, were finally able to defeat the then dominant Athenians, but the war weakened them so much that their own civilization collapsed not long afterward. Maybe this is figuratively the kind of battle Apple wants to avoid. Maybe they even want Linux to do the heavy lifting, while they quietly try to pick up the pieces. Again, this is all speculation.

the company for the ipod, the rest of them.
the boxes and gadgets for the creatives, for the artists, for the graphics, for the misfits.
if you like to have the POWER for business, use IBM.
do ya think IBM makes the cpu and let apple intrude in masses their own market ? dream on...
cheers frank

think of the huge cost of changing all of the hardware! all the existing hardware would have to be dumped. if linux was brought in, the company would be able to keep most, if not all, of their hardware. also, with a company so big, they could afford to have their own support dept.

i think the only reason why apple aren't making a big go at enterprise computing is because they don't want to. they're happy enough with where they are.

It gets brought up every time someone mentions expanding Apple's market share, and then gets frowned up fairly quickly by Mac users and other people looking for an alternative opinion, but in this case, cost is a critical factor.

Large corporations thrive on having uniform systems. You can't just replace a few machines here and there. You need to replace in large chunks, so that the tech support knows what problems are where and can uniformly manage things. You also need drop-in connectivity replacement, able to use shares and network resources without problems, and easy to administer.

Most of all, you're dealing with tens of thousands of machines. With all due respect, it was estimated last year that $150 on every sale of a Mac went directly to Steve Jobs as pay, based on his salary. Now, no company is willing, on 10,000 machines to drop $1.5m like that. Apples are in general, more expensive than other systems, and it is still a little hard to integrate them easily with networked services and remotely administer in a fast manner. This will improve, but until then, they are expensive and require more support.

When you deal with large numbers of machines, even slight increases in cost, unless outweighed by reduced support needs, escalate into large costs at the end of the day.

the problem is that the vast majority of people don't know how to "use computers" the way you mean it.

I am painfully aware of that. But I wasn't talking about people in general this time but rather about the person I replied to, lars, and I think he knows a whole lot about using computers. But he'd rather pay the extra $$$ for not having to use a virusscanner. An argument which I really didn't get, since virus isn't such a problem for people in the know. I just don't buy his argument.

It would be interesting if Apple would partner with Novell. Having their XServer hardware get Novell/SuSE Certified. Apple could focus entirely on the Desktop, Printing (CUPS) and Directory Intergration, while Novell focused on pushing forward enterprise server software, directory services, desktop management, printing services, etc.

I would've said Sun, but they have already made their corprate desktop choice, and its Linux + Java + OpenOffice. Novell has not made such a commitment (you could say that ximian was their choice, but its not very solid), but they will need a corprate desktop stradegy that compliments their server stradegy to compete in the current market.

Major corportations are simply not going to change to Apple hardware. They might, however, change operating systems. Apple is unwilling to release "Marklar" or whatever it is being called these days. That pretty much covers the story of Apple and the major corporated environment. Nothing of consequence will happen.

If Apple wants to enter the Enterprise market, they simply must make the GUI for Novell's Linux. They could also license eDirectory from Novell. They simply need to create buisness partnerships. That is a very strong marketing force. Most people don't even know that OS X has most of the Enterprise Linux software running and/or integrated on it already.

How can Apple move into the enterprise when they can't even get their desktops in order? What's to stop them cooling down the enthusiasm for enterprise products the way they have for the desktop? Intel and AMD for example push into the desktop til they start doing well, then they expand to a new market. Excuse my pessimism but Apple hasn't given me a reason lately to say otherwise.

I love how people always make fun of Microsoft for their security record and then go on to say that if we all used Macs these security problems would all go away...

In the end, the problem still lies with the user and not with the software vendor.

no, no, no!!! well, at least partially. while not all, there have been several problems that have occured on the mac in the last 18 months that have been attributed to MS software

and no i am not talking about the software that disguises itself as MS software but official MS products such as Office.

the funny thing is some of these problems have been an issue on windows as well, even before these products were released for the macintosh.

so while this does not account for the majority of problems, i still find it offensive when people throw out the "its the user" excuse.

if MS were truly concerned they would things similar - not exclusively - to the following...
1.) set secure defaults in the OS
2.) turn off autorun and makE it optional to transfer macros with office docs or even build a new technology that does something similar or achieves similar goals.

BTW: the points above have been suggested for many years but MS has not really done anything about them - so much for "the users" being at fault.

3.) ON THE MAC, use apple provided and recommemded libraries MS has never said why it duplicates certain abilities already in the OS. this would not be necessary if they had software superior to apples on the mac (product for product - no Applle works is not an office competitor so dont use that one) but so far they dont... so why

lastly, i would like to say one thing. many of us geeks here usually say that a good adminwould be able to take care of most issues by locking down certain programs and abilities.

while this is true we should also reallise that the world is changing. the days of using a browser, an office productivity and the coporate thin client only are on their way out.

people are increasingly using multimedia apps/abilities in the home and in some progressive (i.e. vs. slideshows) schools (from junior schools to university) as well.

very soon it wont be odd for - say a secretary or receptionist - to quickly put together a video presentation using things like iDVD, iTunes and iMovie.

so arguments like "hey, why was multimedia app [insert choice] not disabled by the admin" are kinda weak in this regard and are more of a an excuse. with companies doing alot of research into adding p2p, IM, social networks, etc. into enterprise software "its the user stupid" begins to sound more like whining - no offense to anyone. :->

How can Apple move into the enterprise when they can't even get their desktops in order?

Are you trolling? How have they cooled down enthusiasm for their desktops? They offer affordable desktops with their emacs, right up to 64 bit processing power with their G5 processors. They also offer a stable and secure OS that's both pleasing to the eye and very easy to use and maintain. No other desktop manufacturer has the same kind of customer loyalty. Have you ever heard of a Toshiba or Dell Zealot?

Maybe I've misread your post and you're not trolling at all. You should explain yourself a bit more.

is this a weekly news topic....now going on ten year old tired and worn out news?

apple has made servers and had server oses for a decade...short of minimal sales to design shops, educational institutions of a small scale, and limited small business inroads, they have failed miserably in business and the enterprise.

but then, they are also failing miserably in all computer sales. their desktop market is now inconsequential, so why would we think a few pretty 1u server offerings will somehow carry the day in the enterprise?

a catchall server os that can't even compete against other catch all oses (think ms small business server and novell and a rapidly approaching linux), won't make any inroads in the enterprise with its highly specialized needs and solutions.

does apple have strong database support? no
do they have a robust app server? no
do they have robust crm and erp solutions? no
do they have a tightly knit intranet solution? no
multi cpu support? 2 cpu only, no 4 or 8 or 16 or 32 way solutions...
does apple release a clear road map for future release to the best of its ability and planning? no
do they have huge network of solution providers out in the field promoting their product, selling it, training biz on it, and supporting it? no

how many backup solutions are available on the os x platform?
how many technical certifications are available?
how many system admins graduate college with degrees and certifications on os x?
how many third party trainers and support centers work with os x?
how many companies make interchangable parts for servers in need of repair?
how many vendors sell the solutions and are they free to negotiate price or is price rigidly controlled by a central authority?

ahhh, so they can run apache web server...but doh, last time i checked the world seems to really enjoy that solution on linux.

apple doesn't stand a chance in this space. a more interesting article and feedback would focus on how apple is bleeding its last two core marktets: edu and graphic designers of all varieties.

sorry folks, making a shiny and sleek 1u server and having a server os with jelly bean icons doesn't make you ready for prime time.

"while this is true we should also reallise that the world is changing. the days of using a browser, an office productivity and the coporate thin client only are on their way out."

I couldn't possibly disagree with you more about the use of thin clients. In many ways this is going to make a huge return. Thin clients can be very secure, inexpensive, and generally very good at controlling what the user gets on their end. It's also a fantastic way of running some rather high performance software on a really inexpensive workstation, and keeping files where files should be. (on the server)
Consider for a second many companies are greatly tightning access to the internet and non-required applications. Having employees surfing the web and playing games online has never been great for productivity. Thin clients instantly kill all of that nonsense with a one time configuration change at the server end. Less admin costs involved all the way around. IT expendatures are to be avoided like the plague; thin clients on larger networks often save a good deal of time. Time equals money.

Even though your article has some interesting points, your company sounds highly amateuristic. A firewall stops any worm, even without the security updates (which they also should have used).>>>

Where I work (university library) we got hammered by sasser.

Oh, the servers were fine, but a lot of the public use work stations and several staff workstations (including mine) got hit.

This is what our Systems staff discovered:

1) Despite the fact that all machines are configured to go and hunt for new XP updates upon boot, for some reason about 30% of machines don't. They have no idea why.

2) Clicking on the "windows update" icon in the sys-tray works about 50% of the time. (As instructed by systems staff, I clicked on the icon, downloaded, rebooted, and STILL got infected 30 minutes later.) Systems has no idea why the sys-tray icon doesn't work 100% of the time.

So, that said, you can have a very good IT staff, telling people to patch their machines, working very hard to be pro-active, and the shoddy POS code that is XP will still find a way to get more viruses than a 2 dollar crack whore.

---

And were I heading up the Apple Enterprise Team right now, I'd be having some nice brochures printed up with the names of several worms and extra evil malware on the front cover, plus a few quotes from various news sources about how much damage these have causes, and page 2 would be a picture of an X Serve, a screenshot of OS X server, the metalic apple logo and the line "There's no worm in the apple."

Inside would be a business card and offer for a 60 day evaluation (full technical support) trial of any X-Serve.

Anybody who called would be told up front that any business/university choosing to impliment an X-Serve based solution as a result of the trial would receive a 10% discount on purchase price.

ahhh, because we have a technical staff means that they must be good just because they are there and they work hard?

each of the workstations on your network should be running a software firewall in addition to the hardware and software firewalls that protect the outer edge of the network.

for a network as big as a universities, you should have ms sus or sms in place pushing the needed updates out to clients.

but why should you know that if you work in a library on a workstation? are you a part of the tech staff for the univ? if you arent on the tech staff, how on earth would you know if they do a good job?

evidence of what you wrote points to a poorly run network.

"Anybody who called would be told up front that any business/university choosing to impliment an X-Serve based solution as a result of the trial would receive a 10% discount on purchase price."

if apple did that they wouldn't make any money considering they are now at the break even point on their high priced computer offerings....they need the ipod to bring them profit. computers are now a losing proposition for them.

TheSeeke: "if apple did that they wouldn't make any money considering they are now at the break even point on their high priced computer offerings....they need the ipod to bring them profit. computers are now a losing proposition for them."

Hello! Where do you get erroneous unsupported statements like this? God, just look up Apple's quarterly SEC reports and they state margins of about 29% for their PowerMac lines. Hardly a "losing proposition." You don't strengthen your argument when you pull "facts" that are easily disproved out of thin air to "support" whatever it is you're trying to say. How can anyone take your argument seriously when such misconceptions are so clearly on display?

I have played with xserver its great for a small office but even the really large publishing companies that use Macs the most still run Helios on *nix, mcserverip in an NT cluster or the best of all the options for a Mac file/print/directoryservices solution, Novell.

apple has had about 4 billion in cash on hand over the last few years (cash and other readily available securities)

in 2003 they made a profit of $69 million
in 2002 they made a profit of $65 million
in 2001 they had a loss of $25 million

well, Apple, if it invested its $4,000,000,000 cash hoard in very safe investments it could easily have gotten an annual return of 4.5%.

interest of 4.5% on $4 billion is $180,000,000 annually.

$180 million

Yet Apple only has made a third of that the last two years?

Guess what, they are losing money on their operations and are covering it from interest on investments.

You can safely assume that Apple, if not for its cash reserves, would have had losses of at least $120 million each of the last two years.

So, as I wrote, even with their inflated prices, they can no longer be expected to make money selling computers. 2003 profit would have been much worse if not for the fabulous success of the iPod (over 800,000 units sold at least $299 each).

unless something pretty radical happens, their days in the computer market are numbered.

How about OSTrolling, because that's pretty much all that goes on in the 'comments' section. People troll their lines and people will happily bite.

It's fucking horrible to read through, how about a a user moderated system so I don't have to read through 100 posts of bullshit to find 1 on topic reply. Slashdot really does have a pretty effective comments section, I gotta hand it to them.

Excuse my language, but it is getting out of hand.

by PantherPPC on Mon 17th May 2004 18:29 UTC

Actually if you looked a but deeper, they spend that interest money on acquisitions, such as eMagic.

his is just my opinion, but it seems that Apple almost has written off the general market—both at the consumer and enterprise level. Many times Apple has alluded to the fact that the desktop war is over and MS won (no surprise there). As a consequence, Apple seems to have turned more and more to niche markets, and has had real, profitable success. This seems to be the fact that escapes people who rant about Apple’s market share (on both sides). Almost by their own admission, Apple does not want to be in direct competition with the likes of MS. This also may be true at the enterprise level. Although it is the case that Apple has recently made greater forays into enterprise probably since the days of the Apple III (and BOY did that not work), it seems like they are, akin to their desktop strategy, targeting specific elements in industry, and not industry in general.

its unfortunate that we have to disagree coz you are well expressed an do not have any of the "ZEAL" for either side that has been expressed on this site in recent weeks.

i am currently trying to put together a whole bunch of ideas and write a full article expressing my opinions but i'll try summarize one of them here...
1.) many think that MS fears OSS, IBM, Redhat, Novell, etc. apple is often dismissed. my perpspective is counter to the maintream then coz...
1.1 what do those companies have that MS cannot have/get if they truly wanted to? free software? FOSS software? eopn standards? web servers? app servers? directory services? etc.

MS can (and probably will) do all these things if cornered. as long as they maintain a certain ammount of revenue that is acceptable to them or a market share that is acceptable to them, they will not feel or see the need to fully change.

the only thing they do not have is a security track record and individual (i.e. non-corporate) support as OSS does. however, coporate america has purchased their software despite point 1 and point 2 is made somewhat worthless (not totally) by the fact that these people are not the ones ordering 2,000 windows or office licenses.

some specs are several hundreds of pages long and this would probably be done deliberateltly to insure it takes other companies a decent time (minimum 9 months for the likes of IBM, Sun, HP) to create an equivalent

However, the technology that MS fears the most is quicktime.
I won't spoil the fun and will leave you brainstorm. I will leave you with a couple of clues though;
==>qt is a platform
==>qt does text, audio, video, v-reality, scripts/code
==>qt supports plugins (think netbeans, eclipse, photoshop)
==>qt supports desktop apps + web apps (think flash+flex, xul, xaml)
==>qt supports publishing/streaming/broadcasting

yes, for some of what is listed above e.g. application support + plugin support qt would not be very practical as is coz it was not originally designed with this flexibility in mind (e.g. it was not designed for application plugins, rather plugins such as codecs) but rearchitecting and refining it would not take as long as java took to go from set-top-box software to enterprise software especially since they can borrow ideas, for example, from eclipse/netbeans/PS on how to develop a good plugin environment - after adding their own "magic sauce" of creativity and innovation of course.

what apple has MS cannot simply just get for various reasons. what the others have they can - in most cases - circumvent in any one of multiple options (OSS, embrace+extend, price incentives, purchase+put+to+sleep, standardization, etc.) they are already doing some of that right now as we speak under the guise of OSS.

therefore to come back to where we disagree, apple has an extremely high momentum going forward. this is why steve jobs says "we are way ahead of our competitors". people take that and then do something like compare ichat to the other IM's out there and claim it is RDF/FUD.

to me this says - just to give one example - "just like OSX has alot of OS9 and/or NaxtStep, just like BeOS did and MS will do in Longhorn and beyond in adding a database or db-like abilities to the OS, we in our technology portfolio that spans apple/pixar/filemaker have working components (vs. research projects) of the foundations of the next generation computing platform".

what i am saying is, what you consider to be settling for a niche market is actually self-restraint as apple tries to act more like a company rather than the artists' utopia it was back in the days. it is "biting what it can chew". however as the next generation desktop arrives (10.8, 10.9, ?), other platforms will find it difficult to create from scratch or move from research the technologies that apple has had the opportunity to try and test and develop "best use" cases in the applications that today seem like the "high end market".

Remember, yesterday's advanced workstation is what your receptionist will/is using to do your powerpoint presenation ;->

by PantherPPC on Mon 17th May 2004 18:47 UTC

"buying eMagic is part of its cost of operations. when they turn around and gain the sales from its products and modify them into free apps to promote sales of macs....."

Cost of operations would only cover the development.

we dont have a detailed breakdown on how apple spends every one of their dollars."

They talk about it all the time in press releases and conference calls. I've heard it at least a dozen times.

"the bottom line is if they shut down all operations and just banked the interest on their cash pile they would do much better than what they do via all of their other efforts."

Have you looked at how the cash pile grows and how the profit grows? They really don't seem to be related. The thing they could do to make the most money is to cut Jobs salary a bit. He's the highest paid CEO in the world.

"interest and investments cover losing operations....doesnt matter if buying emagic is just a continuation of those losing operations."

Yet those operations aren't losing. Think about it. If you profit that much on each sale, you don't lose money. The money is going elsewhere.

My perception: cost of MS-environment goes up linearly with time; cost of MacOS environment goes down. I am talking downtime, virus time, license costs, CPU costs (the gap between mac and PC here is always shrinking). At some point, people are going to start to notice. I mean, at some point people started phasing out DOS and going Windows 3.X, right?

by PantherPPC on Mon 17th May 2004 18:54 UTC

Now seriously Seeker, what is it that you have against Apple that is so bad it makes you pick out Mac threads to troll around in? I'm not a big MS fan, but you don't see me trolling around in every thread about some new virus.

Apple should come out with a line of iPods for managers. They would cost even more than the current line of iPods which would drive profits up like crazy.

These new iManage iPods could connect to their own iManagerTunes store which would stock music for firing people, music for offshoring, music that hides lies, and other manager-friendly music selections.

The new iManage iPods would also have super sensitive microphones for recording what employees are saying and extensive other spyware functionality.

Apple will have great success making a product that gives the American manager that special edge over the employee.

that is not true. cost of operations is money spent on anything and everything. you are quite wrong.

"They talk about it all the time in press releases and conference calls. I've heard it at least a dozen times"

no, you cannot show us anywhere that apple states with detail how much they spent developing the ipod, how much they make just from apple ipod sales, likewise with itms. no where does apple say that they makde x dollars from investments and that x perecentage was used to do x.

"Have you looked at how the cash pile grows and how the profit grows?"

yes i have watched the cash pile grow and profits remain static or shrink. which means they make more and more off interest and investments and less and less from operations. again they lose more each year from operations and it is only covered by the gains from the cash pile.

"Yet those operations aren't losing. Think about it. If you profit that much on each sale, you don't lose money. The money is going elsewhere"

profit that much on each of what sale? apple made $69 million last year on $6.2 billion in sales. they had how many million individual sales? i dont follow what you are trying to say.

by PantherPPC on Mon 17th May 2004 19:08 UTC

"that is not true. cost of operations is money spent on anything and everything. you are quite wrong."

The cost of operations covers what it costs to operate a company, ie- salarys, rent, and so on.

"no, you cannot show us anywhere that apple states with detail how much they spent developing the ipod, how much they make just from apple ipod sales, likewise with itms. no where does apple say that they makde x dollars from investments and that x perecentage was used to do x."

They keep the iPod/iTMS specifics secret for the time being, suffice to say iTMS has been turning a profit for the last quarter, but they often talk about the rest in calls. Listen to a few in QuickTime.

"yes i have watched the cash pile grow and profits remain static or shrink. which means they make more and more off interest and investments and less and less from operations. again they lose more each year from operations and it is only covered by the gains from the cash pile."

Sorry if that came out wrong, but I wasn't talking about over time. I meant the direct relation to one quarters earnings and profit to the cash pile.

"profit that much on each of what sale? apple made $69 million last year on $6.2 billion in sales. they had how many million individual sales? i dont follow what you are trying to say."

Profit of each sale of any/all hardware. I am saying that the cost of operation is high due to how much they pay the execs (Jobs gets many times what the entire companies profit is). If you sell a 20 $100 computers your sales revenue is $20,000. Now say 20% of that is profit. That's $4,000. But the companies profits aren't $4,000 if the cost of operations (salaries) is $3,500. Then the company profit is only $500.

<<each of the workstations on your network should be running a software firewall in addition to the hardware and software firewalls that protect the outer edge of the network. >>>

Depending on the nature of the workstation and the dutities assigned to that person this would mean 40 to 50 diffferent firewall profiles for staff alone.

Then there are the public use computers, some banks of which have software for the comp-sci students to use. And that would add a whole 'nuther set of fire wall profiles.

<<for a network as big as a universities, you should have ms sus or sms in place pushing the needed updates out to clients.>>>

There are 3 different IT "fiefdoms" that I know of on campus. All serving different user bases. There are also multiple OSes in use across campus. (Oh, and library Systems runs 4 different OSes in the server room.)

<<but why should you know that if you work in a library on a workstation? are you a part of the tech staff for the univ?>>>

I am my department's liason to Systems.

<<if you arent on the tech staff, how on earth would you know if they do a good job?>>

I'll take "my" IT department's Server uptime vs. any other department's on campus. The last time our main server (domain + catalog) went down was because it was turned off when the AC failed.

The main university domain server crashes about once a month -- two or three times a week during registration. The campus email system goes down in flames 3-4 times a year. I'll take "my" IT crew any day.

So "my" IT staff is incompetent when MS's software doesn't work the way it's supposed to? It's their fault that clicking on the "sofware update" icon does produce a working patch of XP 50% of the time? It's their fault that Campus Systems can't properly firewall T-1 in and out of the campus? I don't freaking think so.

you have a large IT staff and managing firewall policies is a normal part of that job function. it should be in place. it is recommended best practice....even behind an outer edge firewall. it isnt hard to do, it is just a part of the job. all machines regardless of the os should have a software firewall running on them.

i did not say "incompetent".

i said your own words point to a poorly run network...at least as it regards ms oses.

again the number of servers or server oses doesnt prevent your univ from using ms sms or sus update and management servers.

the idea that you have a library at a major edu facility and you are going to each pc and clicking on update icons in the system tray says it all about your admin staff and procedures.

and finally, pointing out that you have fiefdoms and disjointed tech management again says "poorly managed" network and security. so if you have "fiefdoms", why not blame that for your troubles?

ms software is not working the way its supposed to because you are not using it the way its supposed to....at least to some degree. manually updating each client on a large network seems very odd indeed to me. do you all have make work programs there or what?

"well, Apple, if it invested its $4,000,000,000 cash hoard in very safe investments it could easily have gotten an annual return of 4.5%."

Interest rates have been at historical lows since 2001. I don't know that your statement is true. I personally would listen to apple's share holder reports to find out what they actually made from interest. They've been using that cash for acquistions so they might be keeping some or a lot of it in very liquid and correspondingly low interest accounts. They generally seperate profit from operations from interest earnings as well so you should be able to find out the true earnings from operations easily.

Because of that i also don't know that you can make the assumption that apple is losing money on its operations. Again these two must be seperated.

I became a little lost reading your response, so I apologize if I am putting words in your mouth, but I think what you have said is in keeping with what I think about Apple’s goals. Apple’s business strategy is confusing to everyone except Apple, but I agree that what they are doing is preparing for the future rather than fighting the battle of today.

One could make the argument that Apple is preparing for a future where there isn’t a division between “computers” and other digital tools. I would say that MS sees this coming as well, in that they keep trying to leverage themselves outward from the desktop (the Xbox, the Windows Media Center, the Tablet PC, etc.).

I think the difference is that Apple seems to be coming at it from the other direction, almost. Whereas MS is trying to move its desktop stronghold into other places, Apple seems to be trying to get the appliances out there first (the iPod being the best example). I wonder if that is why Apple seems to be so invested in the entertainment/media market, in their applications (Final Cut, Shake, etc.), their hardware (cinema displays, firewire), and Quicktime. That’s also why it is so confusing that Apple hasn’t embraced gaming on a significant level (except Pippen ; ) ). It seems such a natural fit. People have often said that Apple is trying to become the next Sony instead of the next MS (interesting that Sony is now in some ways trying to become Apple).

The other day I was looking a thread and I started to wonder when the day will come that we don’t have the desktop computer as we know it—when there won’t be a system that sits on a table that does “computing” work. The tasks will be handled by multiple other devices (a media center that can tune in broadcasts, play games, browse the web, download video and audio; a handheld that produces documents, keeps track of appointments, manages IM, email, and voice communications; etc). That is why your comment about Quicktime is interesting. Apple may be preparing for the figurative death of the desktop computer—preparing for the shift from one computing tool to multiple tools (of course, this would be decades in the future). One thing Apple has always gotten credit for, even from Apple haters, is that they make quality laptops. I wondered if some day in the distant future Apple might lead the way in ditching the desktop tower totally in favor of workhorse servers (xserve, xsan, xgrid, xcetera) and portables. Call me nuts, but I would not be surprised if it happened.

This post got off topic from the original article (it doesn’t have much to do with enterprise). I apologize. I just wanted to respond because it is rare that these forums are something other than people shouting their personal opinions without reading and digesting what others have already said.

I have not looked but again there is a difference between making more off of interest than operations than making no money from operations.

Keep in mind that you are comparing apples to oranges. Return from interest investments is by definition pure profit (or loss). Return from operations also includes the cost of investment in R&D and other long term functions which are designed to pay back the company over a longer period of time. In other words, Apples lower return on overall operations may be a result of development of things like the iPod, apple stores, OS X and G5-based devices which will provide apple significant benefits over the next 3-5 years.

I used to work in that space, and I know from experience that the ramp-up time for selling into the enterprise arena is ridiculous. The first and most important thing you need is metrics. Then you need a sales force, credibility, solutions, support, etc.

It'll take years. What Apple's doing might be what Linux did - get in through the back door. If more employees (developers especially) move to osx, they'll recompile their stuff "just for fun, so they can do work @home." Then in a few years migration will be simpler.

To all of you saying "hey, they suck, they should have stopped sasser" I say "you've disqualified yourself from even talking about the space." Updating 85,000 workstations is not an easy process, because it actually matters if the machine works after the patch...unlike your machine at home.

After reading about 40 of the responses for this. I've only got one question.

Have you guys / gals been sniffing glue?

1) This is about servers and NOT desktops. Servers wise Apple is actually very good value. No per user license equals BIG savings compared to MS.

2) Apple is NOT a gadget company. Yes the iPod has been a big splash. But the big question is why nothing else at Apple has been lately. IT'S BECAUSE IBM CAN'T SEND THEM ENOUGH G5 CHIPS!!!!! DUHHHHHHHHHH. If IBM had been supplying all the chips they were supposed to be supplying by now Apple would be selling 2.6 GHz G5s RIGHT NOW. And they would be talking about 3 GHz machines coming before the end of summer.

3) ANY software, be it Mac OS X based on web based is ONLY there to sell hardware. If it isn't going to sell hardware they don't write it and sell it. It CAN NOT be said any simpler than that.

To summorize. QUITE SNIFFING GLUE and open your eyes. Apple only talks about what they can deliver (unlike MS). Since they can't deliver faster G5s or move iMacs, PowerBooks, etc., to G5s due to lack of IBM production. They can't talk about it.

guess what. Apple isn't the only company that losses money on its operations. At least they have been making a consistent profit through the economic downturn, unlike most other PC hardware makers.

AMD is just now getting back in black... and yet we don't spread FUD that its on its way out.

The entire PC hardware market is very competitive, and Apple's method of selling @ higher margins for a return of better software and better industrial design is not seen anywhere else. Thus it will not become irrelevant for quite some time. Just irrelevant for you, because you are a zealot. congratulations.

Unlike a lot of OSNEWS readers I thought I'd point out that I really enjoyed the article and I thought it was a neat perspective on how apple could broaden its horizons on the corporate market. Well done!

Firewalls do NOT stop worms by themselves. If it were that simple, we wouldn't need patches.

More importantly, you can blame the spread of worms on the average user all you want, but if they don't know about security it's because nobody (read Microsoft) has made it clear how important it is. It certainly isn't made clear in the small pamphlet on Windows XP that you get when you get a new machine. But even for those who think the Firewall solves everything it's not even turned on by default. A new user hooking up to the internet the first time has no idea what's out there. But should he have to? How many of you know how the intricacies of how a car alarm works other than pushing a button on a keychain?

This is not about the home user, and it's not just about Microsoft. This about any company that makes an OS putting security first and user friendliness second. In the caese of MS, they've already got the monopoly, making things a little less convenient for users is not going to lose MS their marketshare. Security of any particular OS is the responsibility of whoever puts it out. Anything else is just an excuse by lazy or incompetent programmers. Just look Symantec and Cisco recently, even their stuff has holes in it. This is well beyond the realm of the average computer user.

Gotcha,,,,,,but isn't that a good thing. I love using the iApps, because to get a similar app on the pc is hard without paying. The reason I bought a mac 4 years ago was because of iMovie and firewire. Those were great options four years ago and still are, because for one iMovie isn't found on PC. Given I've moved on to Final Cut Pro, but iMovie was a good start.

the idea that you have a library at a major edu facility and you are going to each pc and clicking on update icons in the system tray says it all about your admin staff and procedures.>>

Read my first post again.

And to explain in some detail. There are 2 basic images in this building. "Image One" is for the public use machines. "Image Two" is for the staff workstaions.

Both images are supposed to, every morning, go out, look for, download and install the latest AV and XP updates.

Despite the fact that all the public use machines have the same image, for some reason 30% of them don't do what they are supposed to do. (Users are locked out from installing software, so it's not like we have multiple configs.)

So, now, let's go to my office. There are 4 staff workstations. Same image on all of our machines. 50% of us got infected. The only thing that makes my computer unique is that I have Dreamweaver.

I called Systems when I started getting a wierd message on my computer. As per their instructions, I clicked on the windows update icon and downloaded and rebooted.

I then walked down the hall and made sure everybody in my department clicked the windows update icon, downloaded and rebooted.

I was still infected. 50% of the people who clicked on Windows update became infected.

It took Sasser for us to discover that:
(a) despite having the same image, 30% percent of machines, for some curious reason do not download XP and AV updates like they are supposed to. All of these machines have been re-imaged and we hope that solves the problem.

(b) clicking on the update icon in the systray produced a working update ... sometimes.

I don't think "my" IT staff dropped the ball at all. They imaged the machines to AUTO UPDATE first thing every morning, and still that didn't work. You can be proactive and *still* XP won't work like it's supposed to.

The real culprit, other than the jerkweed who wrote sasser, is the crappy XP code with all of its lousy security holes.

(For the record, I've yet to download and install an OS X patch that didn't take.)

again those workstations should have their updates pushed to them....via group policy. they should not be pulling them in themselves. these images you speak of sound interesting...again, you can go to any of the workstations and update them yourself? why isn't it controlled by group policy in active directory back on the server?

"For the record, I've yet to download and install an OS X patch that didn't take"

did you get the patch that wiped out network settings?

or how about the doozy that wiped out external firewire hard drives in large numbers?

Hey man, give it up. You are adding no new information to this. Who cares if apple is profitable or not? Why does it give you glee to see them losing?

Tell me why you think Macs wouldn't be good in the enterprise space, not random stuff about their financials. I don't have any problem with MS, but neither do I have a problem with Apple. Did Jobs kick your dog or something?

how about the doozy that wiped out external firewire hard drives in large numbers?

Don't make blatantly false statements.

There was no patch that wiped out data on external firewire drives.

There was a problem with firewire drives using the Oxford 922 chipset. It was a firmware bug requiring a firmware fix.

"Apple has identified an issue with external FireWire hard drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02 that can result in the loss of data stored on the disk drive. Apple is working with Oxford Semiconductor and affected drive manufacturers to resolve this issue which resides in the Oxford 922 chip-set.

In the interim, Apple recommends that you do not use these drives. To stop using the drive, you should unmount or eject the disk drive before doing anything else. Please check this web page for further updates.

OXUF922 FireWire800 drive issues on some Mac Platforms After extensive testing Oxford has identified that the issue related to data loss on FireWire drives under some Mac OS platforms occurs with OXUF922-based products with software revision 1.03 or less. It does not affect any other Oxford products such as the OXFW911 FireWire and OXFW912 Firewire800 bridge solutions. We recommend that end users upgrade to the latest version 1.05 software (released in September), available from the manufacturer of your external drive.

We can also confirm that the problem is most likely to occur on shut down, sleep or restart of the Mac with the FireWire800 drive connected. To avoid this issue on existing drives (those not upgraded to 1.05), users should ensure that they power up their Macs before plugging in their FireWire drive, then before closing down, going to sleep, or restarting, they should move the Firewire drive to the trash-can, and then disconnect it.

"A week later, Apple acknowledged a very serious "Panther" FireWire bug that that the company blamed on an Oxford 922 bridge device popular with drive manufacturers. Just connecting a FireWire 800 drive to a Mac running "Panther" can ruin the data on the drive. The problem does not occur with earlier versions of Mac OS X, however"

so, if you had that type of drive and upgraded to panther you ran into some serious problems.

a firmware fix for the firewire chipset and an update to os x 10.3 panther to 10.3.1 fixed the problem

"About Mac OS X Update The 10.3.1 Update delivers enhanced functionality and improved reliability for the following applications, services and technologies: FileVault, Printing, WebDav, and FireWire 800 drives. This update also includes the latest Security Updates."

so, yet again: a working external firewire hard drive under os x up to panther, had data deleted by the update to os x 10.3 panther.

apple failed to properly test themselves or did not have an extensive beta test with the public on test machines to protect its end users.

excuse me i should have said update, not patch. an apple os x update ate hard drives is the bottom line....and it impacted a ton of people as evidenced by a google search and viewing the resulting threads on bulletin boards all over the internet.

You lot are sick. There is no way a lot of the people posting here are actually even human, able to argue the same points and come to the same conclusions day after day. Seek mental help immediately.

TheSeeker should be a lawyer if he isn't already, I've never seen anyone bend statements to their favour like this from anyone but lawyers and politicians. Is that a compliment? That all depends what side you're looking at it from.

This just isn't healthy. Open a window, get some fresh air, use those computers you're all arguing the points about so religiously for something more constructive. Yeah, the computers you bought to do work on. The price of which is obviously so important as to waste hours of every day on these, quite frankly, outrageously poor comments sections.

I don't know what the minimum wage is for half the countries you all live in, but if you devoted the same amount of time doing some work you might have accumulated enough hard cash to purchase one of those apples everyone seems to think are so darn expensive. Or an alienware pc.

"Anyway, buying other companies isn't considered in the cost of operating, it's not a day to day thing."

that is not true. buying businesses is a part of operating expenses...even defending yourself from a hostile takeover is an operating expense. you are miserably wrong and clearly do not know what you are talking about.

oracles attempt to buy peoplesoft is an operating expense...it has taken months and has required considerable resources and they still dont have the company under their managment yet. they list the effort as operating expenses. and for them it has been a day to day affair for about a years time now. me go to biz class? you need to get real and head back to elementary school with your childish arguements.

"fiefdoms" implies dysfunction does it not? as if there are petty squabbles and people cant get along?

just because something is large doesn't inherently mean it is a "mess". hell, look at ibm, they run a giant network of unix and windows servers and desktops and they have a central authority. He is a CIO. Doh.

You cannot document one occurence of anyone using a Windows/Linux radeon 9800 pro with 256mb ram working in a mac. just cause you write it doesnt make it real.

"your fun to read you love to gloss over things. I glanced over the link you provided above. It states that there was an issue before panthers update"

installing an update wipes out hard drives completely is an "issue"? yes the update to either the firmware or os helped the matter, but not for the folks that lost all of their data off their hard drives.

wow, i would hate to see what you think a problem would be? spontaneous combustion?

"Now can we get back on the topic theseeker whatexactly is the problem with apple going into entrprise? Since you seem to be the biggest apple critic give me the top 10 reasons."

1) lack of third party applications in vertical markets
2) lack of custom designed software solutions
3) scalability
4) cost of hardware and support
5) dearth of trained systems engineers and architects
6) poor interoperability with existing enterprise software and hardware
7) lack of sales channel
8) lack of support channel
9) poor large scale database support
10)history of half hearted attempts to work with enterprise has left CIO's in an utterly dismissive state of mind towards apple.
11) apple financial prospects
12) apples image as hip teenagers toy
13) apples image as a simplistic toy computer maker for kids and the elderly
13) apples declining quality now that they outsource nearly all manufacturing like so many others (at one time apple quality really was a fact that you paid for but it held real value) now you just pay more for the same slap together low quality builds so commonly seen in other machines.

etc etc etc

by PantherPPC on Tue 18th May 2004 04:28 UTC

"that is not true. buying businesses is a part of operating expenses...even defending yourself from a hostile takeover is an operating expense."

Buying another company is not an operating expense. A hostile takeover is. There is a difference in the two. One is a purchase and one is isn't. The actual cost of the company being taken over also doesn't fall under the cost of operating, but the cost of lawyers and such is...they are either employees or contract workers.

"oracles attempt to buy peoplesoft is an operating expense...it has taken months and has required considerable resources and they still dont have the company under their managment yet. they list the effort as operating expenses. and for them it has been a day to day affair for about a years time now."

The cost of paying everyone involved is an operating expense, the cost of the company they are buying isn't.

""fiefdoms" implies dysfunction does it not? as if there are petty squabbles and people cant get along?"

No. Fiefs are simply a way of distributing responsibility over a large area.

"just because something is large doesn't inherently mean it is a "mess". hell, look at ibm, they run a giant network of unix and windows servers and desktops and they have a central authority. He is a CIO."

And IBM can afford to hire people who are much better at it than a college. IBM develops a lot of the products it uses, so it's not really surprising that they know how to use them well.

"You cannot document one occurence of anyone using a Windows/Linux radeon 9800 pro with 256mb ram working in a mac. just cause you write it doesnt make it real."

So me stating my own experiences and then others backing me up with theirs makes me the one who was wrong? You are the one who has no experience in the matter, not me.

And there's still one big question you haven't answered...why do you seem to have it out for Apple so bad? I visit a lot of Windows forums and don't seem to see many anti-MS Machead trolls around, even though a lot of Mac users tend to dislike MS with a passion. So what's got you so ticked off?

"You cannot document one occurence of anyone using a Windows/Linux radeon 9800 pro with 256mb ram working in a mac. just cause you write it doesnt make it real."

So me stating my own experiences and then others backing me up with theirs makes me the one who was wrong? You are the one who has no experience in the matter, not me.

it is not doable and no one had done it.

document it or go down as a liar.

by PantherPPC on Tue 18th May 2004 04:39 UTC

"1) lack of third party applications in vertical markets
2) lack of custom designed software solutions"

Which is getting better, hence an entrance into the market.

"3) scalability"

How do you figure that one?

"4) cost of hardware and support"

Not much. Even the anti-Apple people admit that they hardware reliability is right up there.

"5) dearth of trained systems engineers and architects"

Again, getting better, hence an entrance into the market. If they had been strongly pushing for years, this would be a problem. It isn't. And there are a lot of trained BSD engineers and architects out there who could move to OS X with ease.

"13) apples declining quality now that they outsource nearly all manufacturing like so many others (at one time apple quality really was a fact that you paid for but it held real value) now you just pay more for the same slap together low quality builds so commonly seen in other machines."

Trolling.

"it is not doable and no one had done it."

Other people in the thread had done it. Just because you don't think it's possible doesn't make it so. Once again, you are the one without the experience.

so, if you had that type of drive and upgraded to panther you ran into some serious problems.

so, yet again: a working external firewire hard drive under os x up to panther, had data deleted by the update to os x 10.3 panther.

apple failed to properly test themselves or did not have an extensive beta test with the public on test machines to protect its end users.

Ok let's get this straight. Apple's firewire 800 driver exposes a bug in some particular firmware. Or specifically a sequence of events in apples drivers triggers a bug in the firmware of drives containing a certain firmware rev.. This process in the industry is called a "software workaround for a hardware bug"

To mitigate the problem apple worksaround the firware bug by changing the sequence of events and also makes it known that the firmware of the drives must be upgraded for full reliabilty.

"Important Note:
Apple has identified an issue with external FireWire hard drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02 that can result in the loss of data stored on the disk drive. Even with the improvements available in this update, Apple recommends you update the firmware on your FireWire drive. Please contact your drive manufacturer for more information."

What do you expect Apple to tell people to upgrade thier drive firmwares and not workaround the issue in software so that unaffected customers don't get affected???

Second Firewire800 is new. Not many of Apple's customers have machines with firewire 800 ports on thier Macs. Even in the small percent of people that have firewire 800, not all of them would have had drives with the Oxford 922 chipset with firmware revs of 1.03 and lower. There is no garuntee that even the beta testers could have caught this bug.

documenting a known problem with kb articles on apples site is not trolling.

go to any of the well known mac oriented bulletin boards or do a search on google and see how many people were affected by this poor testing. maybe if apple didnt live in secrecy and just hope for the biggest bang from its grand announcements, they could provide real road maps for its users and get out some beta tests and this sort of thing could be better avoided. seeding betas to a few thousand adc developers just doesn't cut the mustard.

i know its not a huge number, hell there arent that many macs in the world to begin with, so models that have onboard or third party firewire 800 ports is an even smaller number. that still does not diminish the impact for those that suffered from apples poor testing.

14) lack of clear roadmaps that business can use to plan their expenditures over time. again no vendor is perfect with road maps, but no one is worse than apple....with both hardware and software.

and that is exactly why for over ten years they have made no progress with their servers and server oses.

business wants more than an online shopping site. they want more than a chic mall shop with a weekly meet and greet with small biz owners. they want more than the on again off again sales they see at retailers like circuit city, sears, montgomery wards, etc. they want more than what compusa can provide.

they want to go to a third party specialist that provides them with many different technology solutions and will give them honest answers that serve their needs, not steve jobs wishes.

hell even long time third party solution providers for apple are fed up with them and are now sueing over the treatment apple doles out to trusted partners. undercutting them on costs when they "sell" to apple stores, heavy handed selling policies and price controls, holding back inventory on them to suit their own needs, not communicating future plans and leaving them high and dry with excess stock as new products get surprise announcements.....

few care to partner with apple based on a long history of screwing the channel over.

so when biz and large enterprise needs solutions, they talk to their technology providers and they overwhelmingly tell them apple is not a viable option.

"documenting a known problem with kb articles on apples site is not trolling."

If the problem had related to the article it wouldn't be trolling. Going from one Apple thread to the next bringing up half-truths and spreading FUD that doesn't even relate to the topic in such a consistant manner makes you a troll. If you wanted to debate it without trolling you would use the OS Wars forum. That's what it's there for.

"seeding betas to a few thousand adc developers just doesn't cut the mustard."

There weren't even a few thousand FW 800 drives being used at the time. It was almost brand new.

"14) lack of clear roadmaps that business can use to plan their expenditures over time. again no vendor is perfect with road maps, but no one is worse than apple....with both hardware and software."

Lack of hardware roadmaps is a problem, but they could easily give enterprise roadmaps. Software roadmaps are more than obvious. Their operating system has a basic schedule, and their applications are on rotation. They of course keep new apps a secret.

IBM Global Services is the worlds largest consulting firm and solutions provider.

I have not once heard a story of them promoting apple computers with their powerpc chips in them...they would make money on the sale of cpus and the services and support contracts.

maybe they do promote it, but it surely isn't much or we would all hear about it from the marketing machine in cupertino.

both motorola and ibm are predominantly windows based and yet they have been in partnership with apple for the powerpc for a over a decade. they have an intimate knowledge of apple, their hardware, and their software, yet they choose windows.

wouldnt we also love to know how many windows based desktops and servers apple runs in house as well?

go to any of the well known mac oriented bulletin boards or do a search on google and see how many people were affected by this poor testing. maybe if apple didnt live in secrecy and just hope for the biggest bang from its grand announcements, they could provide real road maps for its users and get out some beta tests and this sort of thing could be better avoided. seeding betas to a few thousand adc developers just doesn't cut the mustard.

No, I have seen data corruption bugs on standard PC grade devices that have been in the market for years, on southbridge, IDE chipset and Harddrive firmware. Many of these bugs are very difficult to hit in a lab environment. It is almost impossible to test every possible configuration and every possible combination of loads and stress in a lab or controlled environment.

If you have no experience working with device drivers and devices or testing any of the above, stop this discussion now. You can't just pick a hardware bug that apple happend to expose and claim it was apples fault for not adequately testing thier OS. What about the many drive manufactures and also oxford semiconductor, they have a larger installed base than Apple, they could should have easily found the bug according to yournaive notion of bugs and complex system interactions.

"What about the many drive manufactures and also oxford semiconductor, they have a larger installed base than Apple, they could should have easily found the bug according to yournaive notion of bugs and complex system interactions."

but as panther was kept so secret, neither makers or oxford probably ever saw a beta release. that is apples fault.

and its not a complex matter to plug in an external firewire 800 drive that is the currently shipping model from several vendors.

get over it. apple dropped the ball. it wasnt tested with a drive plugged in at install or they would have seen the failure. the fix was clearly easy as it came out in a very short time.

by PantherPPC on Tue 18th May 2004 05:28 UTC

"and that is exactly why for over ten years they have made no progress with their servers and server oses."

They haven't had a server worthy OS until 10.2.

"business wants more than an online shopping site. they want more than a chic mall shop with a weekly meet and greet with small biz owners."

Those small business owners are exactly the enterprise they would start with. Your first enterprise sales aren't to gigantic corporations, they are to smaller businesses...you work your way up.

"they want more than the on again off again sales they see at retailers like circuit city, sears, montgomery wards, etc. they want more than what compusa can provide."

Apple is cutting them out as we speak. Not a one of those has done a decent job, and I hope they get cut out quickly.

"they want to go to a third party specialist that provides them with many different technology solutions"

It's called shopping around.

"and will give them honest answers that serve their needs, not steve jobs wishes."

Go into any Apple store, and a promise you the employees won't lie about what they offer. If you think they are, call them on it. They will surely prove you wrong as they know more about it than you. They are consistently well trained, and there are overly-strict requirements for working the Genius Bar.

"hell even long time third party solution providers for apple are fed up with them and are now sueing over the treatment apple doles out to trusted partners."

Did you even read what the suit was about? They admit that all they have is speculation.

"undercutting them on costs when they "sell" to apple stores,"

They didn't undercut them. They sold to their own retail stores at the same prices they sell to any other major chain. You get price cuts when you purchase in bulk. Notice CompUSA and Best Buy and MicroCenter aren't listed in the lawsuit, only smaller no-name shops.

"heavy handed selling policies and price controls,"

The resellers agreed to that when they started. It's been that way since the beginning.

"holding back inventory on them to suit their own needs,"

They give the largest movers the first shipments. How else would you do it efficiently?

not communicating future plans"

They don't do that with their own retail stores either.

"and leaving them high and dry with excess stock as new products get surprise announcements....."

If they can't sell what they ordered that's their problem.

"few care to partner with apple based on a long history of screwing the channel over."

Few small resellers care to partner with Apple because they Apple Retail Stores are outselling them. The larger chains seem to be doing fine.

"so when biz and large enterprise needs solutions, they talk to their technology providers and they overwhelmingly tell them apple is not a viable option."

Their IT guys tell them Apple isn't a viable option. If you had a choice to make your job obsolete, you of course wouldn't do it.

No, but they do buy them when they see that the hardware rarely breaks, the server OS has an extremely cheap unlimited client license, it's virus free, and the hardware price on that level competes with the market leader.

"IBM Global Services is the worlds largest consulting firm and solutions provider.

I have not once heard a story of them promoting apple computers with their powerpc chips in them...they would make money on the sale of cpus and the services and support contracts."

First of all, IBM isn't Apples marketing firm. Second, in almost every PowerPC related article I read they refer the the G5.

"maybe they do promote it, but it surely isn't much or we would all hear about it from the marketing machine in cupertino."

So you expect IBM to promote Apple more than Apple?

"both motorola and ibm are predominantly windows based and yet they have been in partnership with apple for the powerpc for a over a decade. they have an intimate knowledge of apple, their hardware, and their software, yet they choose windows."

Choose Windows? They don't get the option to run OS X on their hardware. The choice is between Windows and Linux for them, and they both use both.

"wouldnt we also love to know how many windows based desktops and servers apple runs in house as well?"

They do develop software for Windows. Just as MS develops Mac software. They vast majority of their servers are OS X Server, which is obvious because most of their servers are for media streaming and content delivery...ie- iTMS and the worlds largest movie trailer site. A few of their overseas sites are hosted on Linux because they aren't allowed to sell hardware to those countries. US law prohibits the sale of 'supercomputers' to certain countries, and that cuts out most modern servers, including Apples.

"10 months of shipping macs with the ports and only a few thousand use them for external hard drives?

you say the funniest things.

i guess firewire 800 is a miserable failure then."

FW 800 has very limited uses, so it isn't used much. There's no point in spending the money on a FW 800 drive when you can get a FW 400 drive that works just as well for less money.

"but as panther was kept so secret, neither makers or oxford probably ever saw a beta release. that is apples fault."

Panther wasn't a secret from developers at all. From the day it was previewed the devs go download it. Part of the ADC.

Personally in my part of the country some kind of partnership with IBM & Novell would be in order. I know lots of companies in my area still using IBM iSeries [AS400} and pSeries [AIX] machines and the IT staff has no intention of "going quitely" into the windows world!

The way I look at it, IBM sells BIG hardware. AS400 and AIX are great boxes...they achive their intended tasks very well, but are precived as non-pretty...and that needs to be changed. IBM shops have always had a networking deficency because IBM has left that to other people.... Novel still has quite the following in many shops that fear the MS creep! But again, they're precived as older and un-pretty even though most of the AD stuff was developed by them 5 years ago. If they would both partner with Apple they could let Jobs do his magic on making the stuff pretty while keeping their core business skills for the techs.

What I've seen of small-medium businesses is that they typically have mixed server rooms already. But the "Windows Creep" is killing them. For a 500 person business with 250 machines they should only NEED their AS400, domain controller and perhaps 2-3 auxillary servers....but the typical business of that size has at least 2 dozen of various types of MS windows...often "dedicated" to a particular vendor's application! Remember, SMBs don't EVER INTEND to spend what MS tells them on IT staff...it's a waste of money to them! What's needed is for somebody to realize that businesses are cheap and get with the program. Apple's Xserver is definately cost comptetitive with any Enterprise server from Dell [note add in SCSI drives and controllers + Windows Enterprise Server + cals and THEN figure the price!] Not to mention the reduced hassle of removing the core of your business from the Scourge of the windows worms out there!

A spokesman for Oxford Semiconductor told Macworld: "This problem was fixed; now it's come back again."

"We are not in the business of blame. As a business, we aim to make the best, fastest and most cross-platform compatible product. We'll take a deep breath and get on with the business of delivering the best product we can. What is important is that we work together in order to resolve the problem for our end users."

hmm that sounds familiar, drive manufactures fix a firmware problem incompletely and then find an OS update further demonstrates the bug. I have seen this many times in the industry, it takes some manifacturers a few rounds of finding bugs and fixing thier firmware to get things right.

Wiebetech CEO James Wiebe said: "It has been determined that this problem between Panther and FireWire 800 drives usually occurs in circumstances involving older, slower Macintosh computers where the FireWire 800 drive is attached to a FireWire 400 port on the computer, and the firmware level of the FireWire drive is 1.02." The company recommends that users of its products install the patch.

That is not a straight forward process. Also apple might have just bought drives that just so happened to have an uprev firmware.

"Go into any Apple store, and a promise you the employees won't lie about what they offer. If you think they are, call
them on it. They will surely prove you wrong as they know more about it than you. They are consistently well trained,
and there are overly-strict requirements for working the Genius Bar. "

Very likely not. There's an old saw:

"What's the difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman? The used car salesman knows he's lying."

Any bug is easy to root cause an fix once you can reproduce it on demand. If apple's drivers in panther change the timing of events and the bug is easy to reporduce it shouldn't take that long to fix.

There is not issue here that the bug was a firmware issue, also by the manufacturers own admission it was fixed once but reoccured, Indicating that the fix was not complete.

The question of wether Apple or anyone would have found it in a lab environment is anybody's guess. Also experience tells me that it is always the one test case you forgot to test, out of the hundreds you did test, that will blow up. Testing and developing software is not easy.

Hindsight is always 20/20. But how anyone can garuntee that you would test a fW800 drive in a FW400 port on an old mac that to with a particular firmware level. If you made test matrices with so many varibales your test matrix would easily go into a thousand different configurations, If your test suite takes a day to complete, it would that a few thousand days to go through that many configs, You would then never get a product out on time.

You can only put reasonable configs in a test case, you can't take every firmware revision level of every drive that you might support and test it.

Well if you had any real world experience we wouldn't be having this conversation.

by PantherPPC on Tue 18th May 2004 06:21 UTC

"Very likely not. There's an old saw:

"What's the difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman? The used car salesman knows he's lying.""

Typically I'd agree with that completely, as I can't stand salemen of any kind, especially computer salesmen. But seriously go talk to these guys, they aren't the run of the mill Gateway (err, ex-Gateway) in store sales team. Most of them are certified in many areas of software and hardware, and working behind that bar requires at least a few years (forgot the actual number, but it seems like it was 3) in the fields they are trained in.

mid to large size third party solution providers in many cases have certified pros on staff for solutions from

apple, though again this is a small number and shrinking
ms
novell
more with linux but it is still a low number like apples
cisco
checkpoint
symantec

several hardware vendors for many of the hardware categories

hp/compaq for computers and printers
ibm....
sun....
sony or acer or ......

and finally they will have relationships with more than one white box pc/server maker that they can also rely on

apple sells only apple solutions and they are sold by poorly paid part timers in general. each store has a few well trained people that work the genius bar. though apple stores are better staffed than the average retail outlet, they cannot compare with a full blown solutions provider.

biz of anthing other than the smallest size works with consultants and solutions providers to get things done...and they usually come on site to evaluate the needs of the company. there are exceptions of course---look at dell's sales model (they also have people in the field though), but you have to be tripping to think CIOs go to apple stores to chat up genius bar workers.

the apple stores at best will appeal to small lawyers offices etc....and that only in select cities in a few select countries.

apple will just spin some marketing blah blah that they have sessions with small biz owners and a few years from now we will all marvel that they made no progress with biz sales. apple will go nowhere in the biz and enterprise space until they wholeheartedly support a real sales and support channel.

mid to large size third party solution providers in many cases have certified pros on staff for solutions from

apple sells only apple solutions and they are sold by poorly paid part timers in general. each store has a few well trained people that work the genius bar. though apple stores are better staffed than the average retail outlet, they cannot compare with a full blown solutions provider.

Hmm you mean like dell only sells dell solutions and HP only HP solutions, and gateway only gateway solutions.

You just mentioned that apple ws sold by third party suppliers, then you say that Apple retail stores only sell apple solutions.

Yeah, so. What does this whole post of yours mean, your are trying to say something, but after a lot of drivel end-up saying nothing, just like most of your other posts.

Duh, Apple sells Apple stuff in thier store, how on earth did you figure that out, genius. By the way apples sells third party hardware (peripherals) and software in thier retail store as well. I don't see IBM laptops at the Sony Factory out let store.

Heck if you think that the new enterprise hardware/software is not going to sell cool. I happen to think it actually will if APPLE themselves put a real effort into it. the xserve has had very good reviews from what i have read. And I know of people that are implenting them over descent size networks( a few hundred workstations). they seem to think the xserve is a pretty good piece of equipment.

Now I dont know the specifics about what they use them for. I do know they have a windows box for specific purpose , but they plan to migrate all the servers they can to the xserve where feesable.

Apple like any real small fish in a sector needs to have some sort of hook to have them get a foothold. And I think Apple can provide if they really cowboy up.

"Typically I'd agree with that completely, as I can't stand salemen of any kind, especially computer salesmen. But
seriously go talk to these guys, they aren't the run of the mill Gateway (err, ex-Gateway) in store sales team. Most
of them are certified in many areas of software and hardware, and working behind that bar requires at least a few
years (forgot the actual number, but it seems like it was 3) in the fields they are trained in."

It would be a bit difficult to talk to them, since there isn't an Apple store anywhere near here. Frankly, an expert in this field wouldn't be a support tech in a retail store.
Of course, calling the support desk a "Genius Bar" may make the customers feel better, but it's just an example of Apple's overblown self image.

by PantherPPC on Wed 19th May 2004 01:04 UTC

"It would be a bit difficult to talk to them, since there isn't an Apple store anywhere near here. Frankly, an expert in this field wouldn't be a support tech in a retail store."

Well of course not. I didn't mean this field specifically, but in general, and in Apples main markets, ie- content creation and the associated applications and hardware.

"Of course, calling the support desk a "Genius Bar" may make the customers feel better, but it's just an example of Apple's overblown self image."

Yes. Exactly. It seems to fit better when you are in the store though, as it's devided into sections, all with names.